‘Cruella’ Paints Dalmatians As Killer Hounds for Character Backstory

Cruella de Vil is painted as being traumatized by Dalmatians in Disney’s latest offering … supposedly, because these “mongrels” killed her ma, which is getting a lot of head scratches.

The villain from “101 Dalmatians” gets her own backstory in the new “Cruella” flick, which is headed up by Emma Stone … and word on the street is that part of why Cruella has it out for this breed is that they were sicced on her mom … in a release-the-hounds fashion.

Different clips and stills have surfaced showing the flashback scene, which shows kid Cruella having to watch the woman who raised her, Catherine, get pushed over a balcony ledge by three seemingly rabid Dalmatians, who go after her on Baroness von Hellman’s command.

She plummets to her death … and the implication is that Cruella’s left scarred for life — and partially explains her meanness toward the pooches going forward. In case you forgot, the OG Cruella was notorious for literally skinning Dalmatians and using them as furs.

Disney apparently doesn’t quite go that far in the movie — although different reviews say they allude to Stone’s Cruella having that idea on her mind. We should also note that the character has a voice-over moment where she explicitly says she doesn’t blame Dalmatians, but a lot of folks just aren’t buying that … and are calling Disney’s origin rationale lame.

What the studio heads/writers did here (according to PO’d viewers) is make Dalmatians the fall dog — when, in reality, they’re actually super friendly pooches … and don’t have a rep for attacking like the movie portrays. Folks say it’s a cop-out explainer that’s lazy and inaccurate.